PLAGUN – The Plague Goes On

Simple, quick, fun...if not for scads of bugs and other annoyances that ruin the experience. Dialog boxes that stick around *just a little too long* before you can dismiss them, bosses that insist on stopping the fight and yapping at you *at length* every single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ refight while your hard-earned pickups slowly blink out of existence, etc. I just lost a run because the game randomly decided to completely ignore inputs every ten seconds or so and stay that way until I took a hit...which is a real problem on the final boss!

Although I do not have a lot of time on the game I can say that man... there is a very apparent issue with UI glitches, bugs, and questionable design choices... BUT! This game is really fun and it's simple nature allows for a lot of builds and replay ability. Even for my small play time I found a handful of fun builds to run while the sick ass music creates an awesome atmosphere. Plus the design and art style of the game is pretty unique and creates a cool tone, but more on that later. The gameplay is in the realm of a bullet hell which usually doesn't consist/rely on of over the top game mechanics to make it rememberable, and this game only reinforces that. I thought at first that it was a little too simple, but the game combines it's 2D Platforming with the combat quite nicely. Again I will give some leniency towards the fact that this is an indie game and alone this game is pretty damn great already; there are a LOT of small things that just weigh it down. First is what I have already mentioned, the UI is unintuitive and down right buggy. You can be hovering over buttons and the game will not register your mouse. Other times your controls can lock on the soul/body upgrade…

it's fine, fun little time but the options for settings are rather limited and the screen shake is quite obnoxious and doesn't stay off despite turning it off. there should be a middle ground option between thumb up and down... it's just okay. would be better if the screen shake was just completely removed, why does the screen shake in the menus? it's very aggressive too. but that aside it is a fun little time. without screen shake it's good and recommendable, with it, it isn't.

[b] Update 6-9-26 [/b] As of the recent 1.1 update at the time of writing, many of the problematic bugs have been squashed, thus making the experience much smoother and more enjoyable, as well as some alterations to the scaling. Overall, this recommendation is less tentative as many of the inherent issues I had have been fixed for the better. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Perhaps my most tentative "yes" as a recommendation. PLAGUN is not groundbreaking, nor particularly special as a roguelite, but is cost-effective little game that has enough going for its content that keeps drawing you back in for another run, especially with how fast runs can go. The primary game itself can be beaten within a few hours, and most of what's after that is extra challenge. [h2] The Good [/h2] Although there's nothing revolutionary here, the game itself has relatively well-built systems. Instead of different characters, you play as one, but can choose a mask that alters your base stats and gives new abilities - for example, your starting mask grants +3 extra ammo loaded as well as giving a leap skill on a 3 second cooldown, but other mask unlocks can include t…

Since I keep getting asked to type a review by the algorithm, I'll try to keep this short and concise and might come back to expand it. Plagun is a wave-based roguelike by a two man team. It is a short game that can be done in 15-30min sessions depending on how fast you get through areas. I've found it enjoyable so far with the customization of items and underlying narrative. I do think in its current state it has some shortcominga: namely the content and balancing of loadout as I feel there's not enough variation in the areas and bosses that you go through, weapons that you get either don't seem to function as well as they should even with modifications you get, and there's random bugs that you can encounter that either stop you from moving or shooting, thus softlocking a run. As it stands, I still recommend it, and hope with the growing attending it is getting, the developers are able to roll out fixes and updates for the game.

The atmosphere is great, I love the retro gameplay, and it's overall a great game. It feels insanely hard at first, but then you get upgrades through the pile and it gets much easier. I hope to see this game grow!